Assigned to cover tonight’s 49ers’ exhibition game at Candlestick against Minnesota, so I’ll surely wade a bit into the Favre-apaloopa, though I’ll do my best to not get caught up in the whirlpool.

It’s an exhibition game. Sometimes I get assigned to write about them. Sometimes I don’t. Either way is totally understandable.

I think Willis will get his first preseason snaps, but Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis will be held out.

And I think I’ll be writing just a bit about Alex Smith, which is normal, since starting QB play–and how the offense runs around him–is the clearest thing to judge from the preseason.

I know: So Jason Campbell is now guaranteed to go 14-2 this season, because Campbell looked good last night in the Raiders’ victory in Chicago. I expect a press release to that effect at any moment.

He did look good, from what I saw, which was not much I happily admit.

—–the column/

Patrick Willis was smiling, and Frank Gore was smiling, but the 49ers’ best players were both talking, too.

Talking to each other, to their teammates, to anybody watching or listening.

A few days ago, they were in a big coverage drill at 49ers camp, Mike Singletary was bellowing at a few players, and Willis and Gore decided to kick it all up a notch or 10.

Want a sign that Willis, at 25, is taking personal and public responsibility to lead the 49ers into the playoffs, by himself if need be?

There it was on the field. Couldn’t miss it. Willis yelled that he wanted to cover Gore and pointed at him. Gore yelled that he’d have no problem with that.

Suddenly, the whole field seemed to get simultaneously a lot louder (whoops and encouragement) and quieter (everybody stopped to watch).

“It was a good vibe for everybody,” veteran linebacker Takeo Spikes said.

Result: Tie. Gore seemed to have the slight upper hand in the three routes he ran, but Willis performed the coverage technique exactly as Singletary was demanding.

“It’d be easy to go get somebody you know you can beat on any given down,” Willis said. “But when you call for the other squad’s best and he calls for your best and both of you all compete, it makes it fun for everybody to watch.

“We know we’re not afraid to go against one another, mano a mano.”

This is a relatively new situation for Willis, a star for the 49ers since he arrived in 2007 but generally soft-speaking and deferential by nature.

Then, last season, Willis started to get vocal on the field, and that translated to the locker room and, occasionally, to the media.

His bona fides are unassailable: Pro Bowl berths in each of his three NFL seasons, an NFL-leading 152 credited tackles in 2009.

In the offseason, Willis was rewarded with a five-year, $50 million extension that guarantees him $29 million.

So, as he sat in a chair outside the 49ers locker room, Willis looked comfortable and spoke expansively. He also stayed on the tips of his toes, as if he were poised to cover me, if I unwisely chose to flare out to the flat.

In so many ways, Willis is now the foundation of the franchise and, behind only Singletary, its leading personality, too.

“I know who I am as a player; I know who I am as a man,” Willis said. “And I feel like, as anything, you have to earn the right first, to be able to tell a guy who’s played 12 years or played a lot longer than you, to say hey, ‘This ain’t it. You’ve got to get this right.’

“For me, I’m a guy who had to earn that right. And each day I come out I’m going to make sure I keep that right.”

There’s a large turnabout here, of course. The identity of the 49ers used to be Joe Montana/Steve Young, Jerry Rice and Bill Walsh’s intricate offense.

Now it’s Willis and Singletary and a defense that Willis believes can support and sustain the 49ers’ developing offense.

“That’s what made the Saints defense really work — their offense went out there, and they put up all those points,” Willis said. “It’s easy for a defense when that happens.”

Your defense can dominate an entire season as Saints offense did in 2009?

“Yeah, yeah,” Willis said. “That’s not tooting our horns, but you see it. It’s evident. I feel that’s what we need to do to help our offense to go out there and feel just as confident.”

To do that, the 49ers must knock off Arizona, a team that seems to have special resonance for Willis.

Last season, Willis declared that there was no way the Cardinals could run on the 49ers defense. He was right. But Arizona still made the playoffs. Which leads to some edgy feelings between the two teams, Willis conceded.

“Honestly, any time someone’s been on top or is on top, there’s always an edge from those who are down low looking up, trying to get to where that team is,” Willis said.

“I feel like this year, Arizona’s the team that has been there. We speak with confidence; we also know they were the division champions the last two years. But it’s a new year.”

And what’s the individual goal for Willis? Is it to be voted 2010 NFL Defensive Player of the Year? He didn’t receive a single vote last season, when Charles Woodson won it.

“Come on, who was voting for that award?” Spikes said incredulously.

Willis said he doesn’t know about DPOY. But he knows he is better than he was last year, and last year was pretty good.

“I just feel like a new light has hit me,” Willis said. “I feel like there’s a new level that I’m at, and I’m excited to go get this year started.

“I’m not here to say and promise this or that, but I will go on record that the fans, the NFL, whoever, has yet to see my best play. My best football hasn’t been played.”

You hear that? Patrick Willis is talking. He doesn’t want to boast, but he also wants you to know that you should be watching him, and his team.

Tim Kawakami

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Great job Tim. IMHO Your best work is your interviews and your follow-up pieces. They are always illuminating because you ask great questions.

You’re at your worst when you indulge in silly rumor-mongering and conspiracy theories. Your credibility takes a hit when you turn out to be flat wrong, as rumors and conspiracies often tend to be (like M. Dunleavy, Ellison, Garnett, etc). That’s why you’re both the most readable and most unreadable columnist in the bay.

Kudos to you on your P-52 piece.

niner

If what i saw from Nate Davis to day is real, we could help the D alot on offense by having him play qb. Honestly it looked like if he wasnt having to move around in the endzone he could have thrown that 65 yard past even further. I think that kid has real potential!

Mike in MD

GO WILLIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOU THE MAN BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Seer

Patrick Willis is everything you could ever want in a football player, a leader, a teammate and a man. It is a pleasure and an honor to watch him develop into one of the truly great linebackers to ever play the game.

All Patrick needs is his health and he will certainly be in the hall of fame one day. I can’t wait to see what special things he has in store for the 49ers and the fans in the coming years.